You may have missed it, but Instagram had a bit of a meltdown over the holiday period. For a period of a few hours, everything went a little crazy over at Instagram HQ when a small test was accidentally released to a wider audience. People were not happy, and it wasn’t long before the whole incident was trending on Twitter. Let’s take a look at exactly what happened in a bit more detail.
Instagram briefly introduced horizontal scrolling and it was horrible
It was Thursday, December 27, and poor unsuspecting Instagram users were picking up their phones to check what their buddies had been up to the night before. What they found was an alternate-universe Instagram that totally sucked. After they’d looked at that first post, sitting gloriously atop their Instagram timeline, rather scrolling down as normal, their timelines scrolled horizontally to the left.
I have the new Instagram horizontal scroll interface. I’m sure this will not be met with any backlash WHATSOEVER. But seems maybe intended to reduce mindless vertical scrolling? cc @mosseri comments at the end 😭 pic.twitter.com/fwmtbfjFaf
— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) December 27, 2018
It was worse than that. Instagram was pushing instructions telling them to tap through the posts on their timeline, just like they do when they are looking through Instagram Stories. Users double-checked to make sure that they weren’t in fact looking at Instagram Stories, and then panicked. It wasn’t a mistake. It was all really happening. Their beloved Instagram had mutated beyond recognition. If they wanted to see all of the posts in their timeline, they’d have to deal with nausea and scroll from right to left.
I have to admit, I was one of those poor Instagram users who was completely thrown by this ridiculous curveball. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I took to Twitter to vent my frustration, but never got the chance. I quickly found the #instagramupdate, which was the number trending hashtag in the U.S. and my fellow Instagrammers cheered me up with their outrage.
THE NEW INSTAGRAM UPDATE IS ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE! @INSTAGRAM WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, OH MY GOSH! By far the worst update in Instagram history! #instagram #instagramupdate #insta pic.twitter.com/KMuFDXRkQv
— Elise Michelle (@elisemichellex) December 27, 2018
Who at Instagram thought this update was a good idea? I’m legit forced to stop and look at other people’s post instead of sliding down #Instagram #instagramupdate
— 6flex (@neahxblackwood) December 27, 2018
So not only is the feed on #Instagram nowhere near chronological, now I gotta swipe to get through pictures?! pic.twitter.com/5bn40d4QVs
— Tyler Smay (@T_Smay) December 27, 2018
The most hilarious thing about the whole affiar is that what annoyed everybody the most was the fact that the new horizontal scrolling forced them to actually pay attention to other people’s post, rather than mindlessly scrolling from top to bottom.
Then, before I even had a chance to post my own thoughts on the matter, Instagram had fixed the issue, put everything back the way it should be, and released a statement, saying, “Due to a bug, some users saw a change to the way their feed appears today. We quickly fixed the issue and feed is back to normal. We apologize for any confusion.” It was all over before it had ever really started.
The ironic thing about the whole episode is that Instagram was likely testing the new feature as a way to battle the mindless scrolling that users rushed to Twitter to defend.